


Myopia

by leonardo_the_vinci



Category: Wicked - All Media Types, Wicked - Schwartz/Holzman
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Light Angst, Light Swearing, Magical Accidents, Sharing a Bed, elphaba aggressively fucks up some magic, frex is kind of a shit father tbh, galinda's done with her shit, humor?, it's pretty gay, just a normal tuesday night, they're pretty gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-28 21:21:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20432633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonardo_the_vinci/pseuds/leonardo_the_vinci
Summary: Galinda's hot, Elphaba's bothered, and they're both just figuring things out.





	Myopia

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first post here. please critique me. prevent me from being consumed by hubris.  
also I don't know how to code in HTML so I blame that for any formatting errors, don't @ me.
> 
> (I hope you appreciate the story, though!)

_You hot-headed wench! Never done a damn thing right in your life!_ Her father’s voice pounded behind her eye sockets as she ripped her glasses off and screamed. She’d failed this stupid spell for the fifth time in as many days. So much for becoming invisible; this time, she was pretty sure she’d actually managed to vaporize a good portion of her body, what with the huge cloud currently obstructing her vision. Reaching blindly to her right, she groped for a large book that sat on the bed close by. A few seconds of muttering resolved nothing, and as she cast the book down in frustration, several small trinkets began to zoom around the room. Balanced unsteadily on her gangly green legs, she wandered over to where she believed the door to her room was located. Her hand poked into the light again, wildly skittering across the wall until it forcefully collided with the door handle. A string of curses and vulgar language poured from the depths of the cloud, and she staggered around before glancing off the other, frillier bed in the room and tumbling to the floor. The clatter was resounding. It was so thunderous, in fact, that anyone who could possibly be walking down the hall at the same time would be both intrigued and quite frightened; which, as it happened, somebody was.  


The unfortunate individual in question was a mature, sweet, and exquisitely beautiful young woman, according to her mother. College, although it was originally a good time, had become exhausting after a while. The endless stream of friends and admirers was really taking a toll on her. Popularity was nice, yes, but she could only pretend to like so many people. Some were tolerable, but the majority of her associates burdened her with their problems day and night. She was too busy with her entry-level classes and minor concerns about her major to worry about what other people were thinking and feeling. Today in particular had been too long for her liking, and all she was currently looking forward to was a relaxing bath, a nice scented candle, and maybe a cheeky glass of wine – never mind the fact that she wasn’t yet twenty-one! – to top it all off. She stopped to check her reflection in a full-length window, sighing at the limp blonde curls that framed her tired face. She forced a smile and approached her dorm room, fully prepared to collapse on the bed, and was instead greeted by hideous shrieking and a sight she couldn’t quite comprehend at first.  


Her roommate, who had buried herself in study for the past few days, seemed to have been halfway consumed by a small black cloud of mist. Multiple objects were flying around the room — including her hairbrush and mirror! — and people halfway across campus could probably hear the increasingly foul language that spewed from the pathetic girl on the floor.  


“Oh. My lord–” she gasped, taking in the situation at last. “What are you doing to my things!”  


“WHOEVER THE HELL YOU ARE, DON’T TAKE ANOTHER DAMN STEP FORWARD.”  


“Well, you’re in a bad mood. Don’tcha recognize your own roommate’s voice?”  


“I’m dealing with a couple things at the moment!” A green hand, sporting several fresh lacerations, carefully emerged from the mist and inched through the air until it grasped her pink comforter. A pair of spindly verdant legs realigned themselves from their previously splayed position. Before her unfortunate roommate could even rise, however, she rushed over and knocked the girl back on the ground.  


“You’re bleeding all over my duvet!” She snatched the girl’s ratty old pajama top and wrapped her hand in it before pulling her up. “For Lurline's sake, Elphaba, have some respect for my things.” Guiding the girl to her own bed, she stood back and waited for one of her roommate’s always-reluctant apologies.  


“Sorry about your duvet,” the girl seethed through clenched teeth. “I’m slightly preoccupied with the fact that I can’t exactly see, but yes, your comforter definitely takes first priority in both my world and yours. I should’ve been more careful where I bled.”  


“No need to get snippy, you mean green thing. I assume this is a spell-gone-wrong? Who was it that told me ‘Oh, if it were my decision, you wouldn’t be in this sorcery class; it’s very complicated and mistakes can be permanent’?”  


“Out of all the insults you've crafted, attributing Morrible's words to me somehow hurts the most. Don’t rub this in my face, especially after last week. Remember how you nearly blew up the whole dorm? With a fucking _sandwich_?" Elphaba exhaled audibly. "This spell's more complex than you could ever imagine.” The green legs, now dangling off of their owner’s bed, kicked the bottom side rail absently. Chunks of dirt dropped from her worn leather boots and scattered all over the floor.  


“Your boots… there’s a bit of, um–” Galinda ran a hand through flat blonde curls and attempted to stay as calm as possible before this complete disregard for cleanliness finally set her off. However, as her roommate didn’t seem to understand subtlety, she opted for a more direct approach. “Would you stop moving? You’re mucking up the floor just like you’ve mucked up this spell of yours!”  


“My _sweet_,” came a patronizing tone from inside the mist, “surely, in this situation, you wouldn’t be so ladylike as to not say fu–”  


“No.” She cut that little green menace off with resounding finality. “You know what, sometimes I can’t believe I’m friends with you – what page of the book is this spell on?”  


“Well, you’ve sworn once alread – wait, you’re going to undo it?” Both girls flinched as their airborne belongings crashed onto the floor.  


“If it shuts you up, then yes, absolutely.” She tucked a stray ringlet behind her ear and rubbed the bridge of her nose, closing her warm blue eyes and taking a breath before wrinkles could mar her still-youthful face. “You exhaust me, you know that?” There was no response. Instead of waiting for one, she took up the book. Opening to the index, she seated herself on her roommate’s bed. _Introduction to Illusions. Chapter 1: Manipulating the Eye; Chapter 2: Confounding the Mind_— her eyelids began to droop shut.  


“You’ve done a fantastic job,” she sighed. “You’ve managed to screw this up so badly that I can’t even tell what chapter this spell is from. My eyes have been manipulated, my mind has been confoundededed, and if I have to read through this whole textbook," _oh, now she'd **really** lost her patience,_ "I’m going to leave you like this forever. Now which page is the spell on, you insolent TOAD!” In her peripheral vision, she could have sworn that the girl flinched.  


“Two hundred seventy-eight,” came the response, meeker than she’d ever heard. Her roommate was typically loud-mouthed, slightly crass, and quite opinionated. And blunt. Not to mention intensely stubborn. Something about the abrupt change in tone instantly drained the fight out of her.  


“I’m s-” she fought for the sound to come out, “sorry.” She really shouldn’t have spat the word out like a piece of rotted ham, but the sentiment was there. She turned to page 278 and stared stupidly at the text crammed into every available inch of parchment. “Did you write in a library book?” she stammered.  


“No. Someone else did. You’d have something to compare it to if you cracked yours open once in a while.” The emerald fool couldn’t muster up enough snark to make her remark sting. “I have a question, if you don’t mind?”  


“Why not? I certainly have a couple for you as well.”  


“What’s my situation right now? All I remember is some fog rolling in, and now I’m blind as a bat. Here–” she fumbled with something inside the mist, and produced a pair of glasses with a freshly-cracked lens. “Can you see these? Can you see my arms?”  


“Yes. To be completely honest, you look like you’ve been eaten by a cloud.” Galinda squinted at a note tucked in between two lines of thick black text. **For any students that may be using this book, be warned: the pronoun in line 2 translates to ‘me’ and not ‘them’. Do not accidentally cast this on yourself.** “Well, that explains a lot.”  


“What? What have you found?”  


“Transcription error, I’m assuming. There’s a pronoun that’s supposed to be ‘them.’ I’m surprised you didn’t see that, Fae.” She’d been stirring up a slew of nicknames ever since the green girl had mocked her propensity for lengthening words.  


“I-I’d suggest reading some of the other margin notes, my sweet,” the girl stammered, the moniker slipping out unconsciously. Boy oh boy, was Elphaba glad that her face was hidden. Although with her luck, her knees were probably blushing as well.  


“Mmmm. Do you call other people that?” She left the question hanging for a few seconds while perusing through the rest of the margin notes. After reading another lewd sentence, she’d nearly forgotten about the shockingly quiet girl beside her until a barely-audible  


“Ah… no,” drifted over. “Sorry about that.”  


She didn’t quite know how to respond, so she dropped the matter. “I see why you didn’t want to read these other notes,” she joked, prompting a snort from the depths of the cloud. “All right, okay, all right… I think I’ve found a way to reverse it? It says ‘my idiot friend blinded himself, so I wrote this little fix for him’. Their words, not mine!”  


“I know. It’s quite clear.” She heard no trace of sarcasm, which was a decidedly rare occurrence. “You don’t tend to call me an idiot very often; that’s your friends’ job.”  


“I don’t call you an idiot because you’re not stupid.” She glanced over at the girl, who had fallen silent again. “Well, all right then. Sit right there, I'll come to you; and for the love of all things good in the world, _don’t move_,” she begged, skimming over the spell again. Their anonymous benefactor had decent handwriting, but the book was so used and beaten that the ink had faded in spots. “Elphabaaaaaa,” she said tentatively, dragging the syllable out much too far, “I’m not sure if I can do this.”  


“Well, what’s it say? Read it to me, out loud, and I’ll see what I can do.” The girl offered up her undamaged hand.  


“No, I-I’ll try it myself. I don’t want to hurt you, though. You said it was super complex, and besides, I’m really not the best at th-” She was cut off before she could begin talking herself in circles.  


“You’ll be fine. As long as this stupid– what did you say it was? A cloud? As long as this stupid cloud goes away. You could turn me navy blue for all I care; honestly, I’d prefer that over green. I just want to see again.” With this final statement, Elphaba thrust her hand forward once again, and the blonde gently took it.  


“Wait a minute,” she said slowly. “You keep complaining about how you can’t, per se, see. Is that… mmm, what’s it like?”  


“Just darkness. It’s not particularly fun; wouldn’t recommend it in the slightest, really.” Elphaba tightened her grip. “Don’t mean to be rude, but I’d like to clear this up sooner rather than later.”  


“Yes, yes, I’m getting on with it. Just one more thing. Hold still.” She leaned forward until the tip of her nose almost touched the cloud.  


“You've told me that twice now.” Her oblivious roommate, however exasperated she may have been, obeyed and remained as motionless as the ancient mossy gargoyles that adorned the university’s door. Confident that she would stay in place, the blonde slowly pushed her face through the mist. To her surprise, it acted as nothing more than a thin visual barrier: once through, she could see perfectly well. Every detail of her roommate’s face was easily discernible: piercing brown eyes; thin lips that rarely formed a smile; the wispy baby hairs that sometimes would fall into her eyes when she rolled over at night, streaking her emerald skin with black; the harsh jawline and even harsher cheekbones. Even possessing such a striking combination of features – along with a hell of a personality – her roommate also exuded subtle beauty, and Galinda began correcting herself. Her eyes did not pierce, they searched; her jawline was strong, not harsh. “You’re wasting time,” the green girl whispered, nigh-inaudibly. She did not reply; instead, she allowed herself to admire the sight in front of her, feeling slightly voyeuristic but ultimately calm.  


“Has anyone ever told you you’re beautiful?”  


The girl started, nearly knocking their foreheads together. “No, I-”  


“Well, they really should. Shame on them; you’re exquisite.” She felt her hand being dropped as if it had bitten the green girl, and she slipped back into her right frame of mind after the dull butter knife of regret tore through her chest. “Oh, that’s not what I meant! Not that I don’t think you’re beautiful, you are, but not exquisite perhaps, you’re not some fancy lamp or decorative birdcage– not that you aren’t valuable! You are, it’s just-”  


“S-stop.” The girl went so far as to carefully place her hand over the blonde’s mouth. “Shut up, please. I didn’t agree to sit here and be mocked. Nobody can subsist on a diet of lies, however tempting and delicious. If you don’t want to do this spell, if you just want to stare into my face and wax poetic about how I’m beautiful, then be my guest. You have thirty seconds. Make 'em count. Drag some emotions out of this sack of wet meat I call a brain. When you're done, I’ll find somebody else who’s willing to get within ten f-feet of me and trust them with my health and safety instead," here Elphaba swallowed thickly, surpressing _something_, "and you can fuck off back to your prissy friends and have a nice laugh about how I maybe... maybe dared to believe you for a second. I don’t understand,” she rambled on in a wavering voice, “why this conversation is even taking place. You had no reason, no right to say anything, why would- never mind. Do the spell. Please. If you need help, I’ll help you, but I can’t be idle for much longer. I... I have homework.”  


The blonde withdrew from the mist and grasped the green hand once more. She thought it best to not say anything and to leave Elphaba stewing in her own thoughts, which was her second-favorite past-time. _I do believe I should’ve taken that a bit slower._ She hoped that her roommate wouldn’t be angry for much longer; this spell required focus that she wasn’t entirely sure that she possessed.  


“Hey, um…” she trailed off, treading carefully. “You said that you wouldn’t mind helping me? You’re a lot better at this whole sorcery thing than I am, and I’m really tired.”  


“I suppose, yes. If you really feel like you can’t do it.” The green girl seemed quite enthusiastic to move on from the subject of her looks. She took the book and waved it around, and the blonde tugged it into her own lap.  


As they began to chant, Galinda felt her arm shake. With every phrase it grew stronger until it had transformed from a tremor into the sensation of flowing water. She paused after her next sentence and gazed downward. The junction between the two young women was lit up equal parts green and pink, each color providing contrast to the other participant. It undulated in the rhythm of her pulse, and the thought occurred to her that, in this moment, their hearts were beating as one.  


“You’ve stopped.” The green girl sounded abnormally breathless, and no longer so very angry. Galinda unwillingly broke away from the wondrous sight and resumed the spellcasting. The process took over an hour, but eventually they finished. The cloud dissipated, and her roommate stood up, took exactly two and a half steps, went extremely pale, and passed out on the floor.  


Lifting the girl on to her own bed — bloody hand and all — she sat down and fought the urge to shake her awake.  


“Didn’t even thank me,” she muttered, but deep down she knew that Elphaba had indeed done most of the work.  


With nothing more for her to do, Galinda set about taking her hot bath, lighting a candle, and gathering her belongings from around the room. After tossing a pair of underwear into the laundry basket, she ungracefully flopped down onto her bed, forgetting for a moment that her roommate had been recovering there for the better part of two hours. The force of her body-slam into the mattress bounced the other girl an inch or two into the air.  


“D’you mind?” came a gruff growl. She weakly turned her head to the right, only to be met with a pair of squinty brown eyes no more than two inches from her own.  


“No, I don’t mind, thanks for asking,” she sighed. Her roommate, pointedly ignoring her snarky response, snagged a pillow and tucked it under her head. “I don’t assume you’re getting up?”  


“If you want me to, I will.” The sheer exhaustion in the green girl’s voice softened the blonde’s heart. Instead of shoving the girl — who, admittedly, was still sporting less of a healthy, robust emerald hue and more of a minty pallor — aside, she sat up and rolled down the duvet. With her last dregs of strength and a bit of coercion, she dragged the both of them under the soft blanket and made a feeble attempt to extinguish the bedside lamp. Turning onto her side, she sent a pleading glance to her roommate. Moments later, the light flickered out.  


“Mmmm, m’sweet?” A tired whisper floated to her ears. “Thank you.”  


And just like that, without any second thoughts, residual anger, or incredible awkwardness, sleep’s soft limbs lay over them and drew them together. As the sunlight burst through the undrawn curtains and the birds sang their glory-hallelujahs to the morning dew, the girls slept on.

**Author's Note:**

> _I mean I didn't lie when I said it was pretty gay now, did I_


End file.
